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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24916978">Rounded With a Sleep</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediDryad/pseuds/JediDryad'>JediDryad</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Legends - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Breaking up is hard to do, Dreams, F/M, Kidnapping, Oh we're all OOC here., Symbolism, but at a Grade 11 English level, but only a teeny little bit;, subconscious meandering</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:35:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,327</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24916978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediDryad/pseuds/JediDryad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke Skywalker has been kidnapped, which is suspicious in itself. Who could sneak up on a Jedi Master? But perhaps the ensuing events will offer some clarity in the midst of recent heartbreak.</p>
<p>Thanks to the Fic Whining Circle for telling me this odd meandering mini adventure might be a thing worth sharing.</p>
<p>For atamascolily and her insightful and inspiring Callista stories.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Callista Ming/Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rounded With a Sleep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/gifts">atamascolily</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>For your head</i>
</p>
<p>The words swam into view, coming sluggishly into focus. They were scribbled on a piece of flimsy, next to some tablets that were easily recognizable as standard pain suppressors.</p>
<p>“For my head?” Luke thought. “What’s wrong with my head?”</p>
<p>He realized he was lying down and shifted to get up. Then he grabbed his face in agony as a sudden throbbing pain radiated between his temples and gravity seemed to reverse itself.</p>
<p>Question answered.</p>
<p>Fighting to keep the mysterious nausea and vertigo at bay, he reached out for the tablets and water next to the piece of flimsy and then let himself drift back to sleep. </p>
<p>The next time he woke up, his head was clear and the nausea was gone. He felt refreshed, as though he’d had one of the best night’s sleep of his life. It was great, except for the fact that he had no idea where he was, or how he’d gotten there.</p>
<p>He heard the low hum of a hyperdrive - a pretty high end model if his ears served him - and felt the distinctive supermotion that came with being in hyperspace.</p>
<p>“Lights: 42%” he called out tentatively, and the ambient illumination responded to the command. Soft light flooded his space.</p>
<p> He glanced at his surroundings. He was in a pleasantly appointed stateroom on, what he was now concluding, was a very nice yacht. With the soft drive, automated controls and contoured bulkhead,  it was the sort of ship Lando would rhapsodize about having once owned and lost in a high stakes game of something - both in the same evening, of course.</p>
<p>Whatever this was about, it probably wasn’t money. This being didn’t need any of his.</p>
<p>He sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He found a small lump on the crown of his head that was slightly tender to the touch. That might explain some of how he got here.</p>
<p>He remembered being at the spaceport on Coruscant. He’d booked an X-Wing. Artoo had gone ahead to do a systems check and make sure of compatibility. Luke had been reassuring the droid via comlink when… that was the last thing he remembered.</p>
<p>Artoo must have known immediately that something was wrong. The droid would have raised every alarm, and yet, somehow Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, had been knocked over the head and had been spirited off the most heavily controlled planet in the galaxy.</p>
<p>Leia must be frantic. He was supposed to travel with her, he remembered. She’d probably cancelled her mission or sent someone else, and that meant his disappearance had disrupted the delicate diplomatic balance of the galaxy.</p>
<p>He chuckled ruefully as he realized a bump on the head would not be considered enough to justify that. And as the chuckle faded, he realized he was enjoying himself.</p>
<p>That was odd. He probably should be very concerned right now. After all, he had no idea where he was or why, and for someone to get a drop on him like that, they’d have to be very powerful and probably also have access to Ysalimiri.</p>
<p>And yet, all felt well. Could those pills he’d had earlier have done something to his perception?</p>
<p>Or maybe it was just apathy based on how he’d been feeling lately. He regularly scolded himself for his emptiness, self chastising with reminders that he had Leia’s family and a moon full of students. Just because he was exhausted by all of it and often wanted to run into the jungle and never return, just because he felt the academy was succeeding in spite of him instead of because of him, just because his last shot at love had fled from him like he was a sandstorm, and hadn’t left any real answers…</p>
<p>He sighed and heard Callista’s message in his ears again. He’d played it so often in those early weeks that he had it memorized and could conjure every aspect behind his eyelids: the moment of joy when it was clear she was alive,  her sad grey eyes, her sacrificial language. If only he could find her and tell her none of it mattered.</p>
<p>He ran a hand through his hair and down his face. Stubble. He’d been out for awhile.</p>
<p>Whatever he was going to do, his first step was getting back to Coruscant, and that meant figuring out what was going on here.</p>
<p>Carefully, he reached out to the Force, half expecting to sense nothing, only to find it flowing as usual and showing him the full details of the ship, stern to bow. And in the cockpit…</p>
<p>He smiled, and he knew it was his first real smile in months.</p>
<p>Mara.</p>
<p>There were many beings in the galaxy who would only have been more terrified to learn their captor was Mara Jade, smuggler and former Emperor’s Hand, but Luke had always trusted her and she’d never given him reason not to. He’d come to count her among his best friends - even if she refused to finish her Jedi training.</p>
<p>The pieces were beginning to come together. This must be her new ship. He’d been in it once before when she’d come to visit him and Callista on Yavin. She’d seemed happy and playful when she’d arrived and less so when she’d left mere hours later. She’d barely said goodbye and she hadn’t been back.</p>
<p>He’d missed her, he realized, but then he always missed Mara when she wasn’t around. That was not new. She was one of those beings that never ceased to make things feel a little brighter to him.</p>
<p>It occurred to him, all of a sudden, that there were plenty of people he hadn’t seen or spoken to in months. He’d been so caught up in following all the leads he could find, no matter how unlikely, like this new one to a planet best known for being the site of an ancient plague. He’d neglected a lot of people.</p>
<p>Maybe she’d noticed too.</p>
<p>He slid off the bed and touched the door controls. The door slid open at his command and he followed the corridor towards the front of the ship.</p>
<p>He couldn’t stop himself from ogling the lux interior and the myriad transparisteel viewports along the way.</p>
<p>No wonder Mara had been proud to show it off when she’d come to Yavin. He should have asked for a tour then.</p>
<p>“Mara”, he said as he dropped into the co-pilot seat next to her, “Did we plan a trip?”</p>
<p>“No,” she answered, tersely, eyes forward, as though she were actually piloting through hyperspace.</p>
<p>That was disappointing. He’d been hoping for a lighthearted response, not to mention an explanation. Mara tended to be upfront.</p>
<p>She did not seem glad to see him. </p>
<p>He held his silence, waiting for something more.</p>
<p>She sighed and turned to look at him, “Is that really your opening shot?”</p>
<p>“You were expecting something else?”</p>
<p>Her lip curled unpleasantly.</p>
<p>“Yeah actually. I was expecting something more along the lines of ‘Mara Jade, what do you think you’re doing? I’m a very busy jedi with very busy jedi work.”</p>
<p>Luke narrowed his eyes, “The Fey’lya impression is a bit unnecessary, don’t you think?”</p>
<p>She met his gaze smoothly.</p>
<p>“Is it?”</p>
<p>He was surprised by her hostility.</p>
<p>“I was at the spaceport…” He touched the tender lump on his head again.</p>
<p>She held silence.</p>
<p>“Did you have a particular reason for knocking me out and dragging me to your ship, or did you just miss me?”</p>
<p>“Don’t flirt with me, Skywalker. Your heart’s not in it.”</p>
<p>Flirting? Was he flirting?</p>
<p>“What does that have to do with anything?”</p>
<p>She gave him a once over.</p>
<p>“Nothing, I guess.”</p>
<p> Suddenly, a series of twitters erupted from behind them</p>
<p>Luke spun around to see Artoo rolling into the room, chirping away madly.</p>
<p>“Artoo, she got you too!” That explained the lack of alarm, although surely Mara knew better than to let the droid loose on a ship he didn't want to be on.</p>
<p>Artoo’s beep of agreement was sheepish and too quick, and Mara turned back to her control panel, but not before he caught a tiny smile on her face.</p>
<p>Luke gave the droid a withering glare.</p>
<p>“Oh, you were in on this.”</p>
<p>The astromech whined guiltily.</p>
<p>“What did she say to talk you into helping her?”</p>
<p>Artoo Detoo blared a raspberry and beeped at Mara before spinning around and rolling out again, with a final exasperated blast .</p>
<p>“Did you bribe him?”</p>
<p>“Blackmailed him,” she answered conversationally.</p>
<p>“With what?” Luke was stunned.</p>
<p>“That’s between the two of us.”</p>
<p>Mara took Luke’s moment of shock as an opportunity to slip past him.</p>
<p>“Wait a minute,” he blurted as he followed her back towards the galley, “I need to know what’s going on here.”</p>
<p>She let out a burst of cynical laughter that echoed the pained chuckles she’d granted him in the first months they’d known each other.</p>
<p>“Because you’re a very busy jedi with very busy jedi work to do?”</p>
<p>“No”, he picked up his pace, “because I’m a sentient being who was kidnapped in a spaceport!”</p>
<p>She glanced over her shoulder.</p>
<p>“Are your other kidnappers usually forthcoming about their motivations?”</p>
<p>Luke’s jaw fell open.</p>
<p>“Dinner?” she asked.</p>
<p>His stomach growled.</p>
<p>“Sure.”</p>
<p>Maybe he’d be able to make more sense of this after some food.</p>
<p>She dropped a couple of packaged meals in the heater and gestured him over to the small table across from the prep station.</p>
<p>“Gourmet?” he asked, feeling snarky.</p>
<p>“Naturally.” She matched his tone.</p>
<p>“No mood music? Soft lighting?”</p>
<p>She raised her eyebrows and pulled her lightsaber off her belt. </p>
<p>She then ignited it and balanced it carefully on the table between them: an odd centrepiece.</p>
<p>Her expression dared him to say something.</p>
<p>“You look beautiful in blue” he said, losing the sarcasm halfway through the sentence as the light caught her hair. </p>
<p>Had he ever wanted to unravel Mara’s braid and stroke her hair before? He must be lonelier than he’d thought.</p>
<p>The timer went off and Mara pulled the packaged meals out. She laid his container down on the table and cracked the seal in front of him.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t want you to think I had tampered with your dinner.”</p>
<p>“I would never think that.” </p>
<p>Luke was offended.</p>
<p>She closed her eyes and shook her head for a minute.</p>
<p>“No, you wouldn’t. Would you?” She mumbled cryptically.</p>
<p>They ate in silence, except for the hum of the lightsaber.</p>
<p>Everything about this situation was ridiculous, Luke acknowledged quietly to himself as Mara focused on her meal. This ultra polite kidnapping, the moments of hostility that didn’t seem related to the kidnapping, the fact that he would have happily joined Mara on whatever this was if she’d just asked.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t he?</p>
<p>There was a sudden jolt and the ship shuddered. The lightsaber tipped over towards him and they both stopped it in mid air before it could bisect him.</p>
<p>Luke felt Mara’s sense twine with his for a moment as they reached out for the same object. She was warm, flooding like hot chocolate into his cold empty spaces.</p>
<p>She snatched the lightsaber out of the air and turned it off.</p>
<p>“Not that again.” She groaned, and Luke realized his meandering contemplation had lasted no time at all.</p>
<p>“Something’s wrong? On this ship?” he blurted out as she jumped up smartly from her seat and rummaged through a nearby cupboard.</p>
<p>The ship jolted again.</p>
<p>“Yeah the cyclonic pintle gudgeon is loose. It keeps slipping off the electroslag gears.” she explained as she pulled out a standard issue tool kit.</p>
<p>“I’m surprised that you’d take it into hyperspace if it needed maintenance”</p>
<p>“You and me both, Skywalker.”</p>
<p>She glared at him and all but threw the tool kit in his arms. “Make yourself useful.”</p>
<p>He followed along behind her as she moved briskly aft, her steps graceful and crisp, purposeful and…</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Nothing.” He’d been staring.</p>
<p>“You sure?”</p>
<p>“Well, I mean other than the fact that you still haven’t told me why I’m here.”</p>
<p>She rolled her eyes and threw open a floor panel ushering him down the stairs with her into the bowels of the ship.</p>
<p> “I need a hydrospanner.”</p>
<p>He opened the kit and perused the precisely laid out trays.</p>
<p>“A hydrospanner for the pintle gudgeon?”</p>
<p>“It’s a new thing. The model 14 and newer have adjustable flaps, sometimes they come loose.” </p>
<p>“Sounds like a poor design.”</p>
<p>“It is.”</p>
<p>“She opened a panel and held out her hand for the tool as Luke retrieved it for her.</p>
<p>“I had made an appointment to get it replaced after my last trade run but I had to cancel it so here’s my poor Fire stuck acting like the Millennium Falcon.”</p>
<p>Luke chuckled.</p>
<p>“Hey, you’re insulting your ship. It doesn’t deserve it.”</p>
<p>Her lips curled slightly into the first smile he’d seen from her since he’d woken up. </p>
<p>He watched her work for a moment as another loud jolt shuddered fore to aft. Her focus and control never ceased to amaze him.</p>
<p>“What are you trading to earn enough for this?”</p>
<p>She slammed the panel shut.</p>
<p>“You ask now?”</p>
<p>More hostility.</p>
<p>“Is that why you’ve kidnapped me, because I didn’t ask you more about your ship last year?”</p>
<p>She reached up higher for another panel and ignored the question.</p>
<p>“I need the fusion cutter.”</p>
<p>He handed it to her and stood back again, content to watch her. Within moments, it became clear that whatever she was trying to do was just a little out of reach. She strained her arms and pulled up on her toes as far as she could before finally letting out a growl of frustration that sounded like a sob.</p>
<p>She turned to him and he could see tears brimming in her eyes.</p>
<p>He didn’t dare acknowledge them.</p>
<p>“Can you reach it?” she asked. The defeat in her voice choked him.<br/>
He nodded and stepped up next to her as she reluctantly handed him the fusion cutter.</p>
<p>Heart aching for her pain, although he didn’t understand it, he followed her instructions.</p>
<p>“Okay”, she said when he was done,  “we need to tighten the other end.”</p>
<p> All of the previous emotion was gone from her voice. She reached past him for the hydrospanner and grabbed a small headlamp that Luke hadn’t noticed in the tool kit.</p>
<p>“Follow me.”</p>
<p>He did, mind whirling as they picked their way along the wire lined passage to the other side of the ship.</p>
<p>“You’re angry with me.” he said into the silence.</p>
<p>“I am.”</p>
<p>“I’m not angry with you.”</p>
<p>Another humourless chuckle.</p>
<p>“That’s because you’re a ridiculous jedi master and beyond anger.”</p>
<p>“No. No I’m not.”</p>
<p>She stopped and shone the light in his face, scrutinizing him.</p>
<p>“You sure?”</p>
<p>He nodded.</p>
<p>She frowned and turned away. She slid open an access panel just like its twin on the other side of the ship.</p>
<p>“Hold this”, she ordered, handing him the light and tossing the spanner  from one hand to the other like he’d watched her do with her holdout many times over the years.</p>
<p>“Why aren’t you angry with me then? As you have noted, I kidnapped you.”</p>
<p>He smiled and leaned in a bit closer under the pretense of thoroughly lighting her workspace.</p>
<p>“Yeah but I like spending time with you. If you’d asked I’d have…”</p>
<p>He paused. He watched her expression tighten and she reached over and snatched her handlight back from him.</p>
<p>“Found some reason to be too busy.”</p>
<p>He slumped against the bulkhead.</p>
<p>“Probably.”</p>
<p>She nodded and went back to what she was doing with a bit less finesse now that she had both hands full.</p>
<p>“I’m not making excuses.” He let out a sigh heavy enough to ruffle the hair on his forehead, “I’m trying to run an academy.”</p>
<p>Mara dropped her hands to her side and met his eyes in the shadows.</p>
<p>“I know. I shouldn’t be angry.”</p>
<p>“But you are.”</p>
<p>She twisted a lip in thought.</p>
<p>“I seem to be. Most people just write that off as me being me.”</p>
<p>“I don’t.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>She didn’t elaborate.</p>
<p>“And I’ve been busy trying to find Callista.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Karrde told me. I don’t know where she is.”</p>
<p>Luke knew the anger he suddenly felt was disproportionate to her simple response, but he felt it anyway.</p>
<p>“You don’t seem to care, either.”</p>
<p>He could barely see her eyes narrow in the gloom.</p>
<p>“It’s her business.”</p>
<p>“She didn’t have to leave.” Luke burst out passionately as he had with Leia, Han, Wedge, anyone he’d been able to get to listen to him.</p>
<p>“It didn’t matter to me that she couldn’t feel the Force anymore.”</p>
<p>He got a small shrug in response.</p>
<p>“Well I assume it mattered to her.”</p>
<p>“It didn’t have to.” He could hear the desperation in his voice.</p>
<p>Mara’s nod was neutral as she turned away from him and slid open another panel. She hung her hand lamp on the access flap and scrutinized the wiring in front of her.</p>
<p>Luke could feel his patience wearing thin.</p>
<p>“Mara, why am I here?”</p>
<p>She sighed deeply.</p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>That was not the answer he was expecting. Nor had he expected the frustration in her tone, or the fact she seemed unlikely to offer up anything else.</p>
<p>“Where are we going?” he asked, hoping for some information at least.</p>
<p>“Ithor.”</p>
<p>“Why there?”</p>
<p>She shrugged as though she’d barely considered it. “It’s nice. Stable. It’s a jungle planet like Yavin. I thought you might like it.”</p>
<p>“You’re taking me on vacation?”</p>
<p>“Call it whatever you like, Jedi.” She lit up the fusion cutter.</p>
<p>“So far I’m still calling it a kidnapping. This isn’t like you, Mara. You don’t do things on a whim just because you feel like it.”</p>
<p>The cutter switched off.</p>
<p>“It’s not a whim. I don’t know why you have to be here. I’d really prefer you weren’t at the moment actually.”</p>
<p>“What made you decide to do it then?”</p>
<p>She looked at him and he sensed a deep embarrassment  flooding from her.</p>
<p>“I had a vision”</p>
<p>“A Force vision?”</p>
<p>She shot him a withering glare.</p>
<p>“Is there another kind?”</p>
<p>Luke refrained from noting there were certain hallucinogens that sentients swore by for visions. </p>
<p>Mara was clearly not in the mood.</p>
<p>“What happened in the vision?”</p>
<p>The Force showed me you. It showed me Coruscant and your ship. Then it said “Go get Skywalker” so I did.</p>
<p>“Since when do you take directions from the Force?”</p>
<p>It told me this constantly for a week. I haven’t slept because when I close my eyes it sends me to you. So yep, I listen to the Force when it  knocks me on my ass more effectively than Sheev’s voice ever did.”</p>
<p>Luke realized his mouth was open.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you were about to do before I showed up Skywalker, but the Force did not want you doing it.”</p>
<p>“That’s ridiculous!”</p>
<p>Her frown was pointed.</p>
<p>“Then you tell me why you’re here holding me up while I try to get my ship working right.”</p>
<p>He was silent. </p>
<p>Mara had never asked for him to drop into her life, he knew. She’d been upfront about that on Myrkr. He’d hoped things had changed but her outburst now made that seem unlikely.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>Her lips tightened.</p>
<p>“It’s not your fault,” she said quietly as another jolt lurched through the ship.</p>
<p>This time the bump threw her off balance. Luke caught her before she could fall. Arms around her, his eyes caught hers in the lamplight.</p>
<p>She was breathtaking. </p>
<p>“Luke” she whispered. She never used his first name. It was like a beacon.</p>
<p>He leaned towards her - and the proximity alert started screaming.</p>
<p>Luke snapped awake, heart pounding, fingers to his lips. His Coruscant bedroom coalesced around him. It was the middle of the night. He glanced over at his nightstand to see his comlink blaring away. He’d forgotten to reset his Yavin alarm.</p>
<p>He sat up in bed and stared out at the late night traffic zooming by his apartment.</p>
<p>The dream had been so vivid, so strange. Why had his subconscious created that mess for him?</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you were about to do Skywalker, but the Force did not want you to do it.”</p>
<p>He thought about the note from Callista, telling him to stay away. He thought about her goodbye message telling him that she needed to go.</p>
<p>For the first time, he thought she might really have meant them.</p>
<p>“Well clearly it mattered to her.”</p>
<p>He realized he hadn’t really thought much about what had mattered to Callista. He’d assumed the chance to be with someone who loved her and would never leave her was enough, but maybe that would only be enough for him.</p>
<p>He’d made it so clear that it didn’t matter to him whether she could feel the Force. He adored her and would love her always. But maybe her departure hadn’t been about him so much as it had been about her.</p>
<p>She’d spent months observing the academy, unable to participate beyond sitting for interviews with Tionne and adding a few new saber skills to the mix. </p>
<p>Initially, she’d seemed happy to train him in techniques to pass along, but as time wore on, she’d been less and less interested.</p>
<p>He’d thought her withdrawal had been because he had been too busy to spend as much time with her as she wanted, but taking her on that romantic vacation hadn’t helped. Then he thought it was because she struggled to relate to the changed galaxy, but maybe it had been the change in her.</p>
<p>He remembered the relief when he’d flown away from Myrkr and felt the Force again. It had been like removing a blindfold. He wasn’t sure how he’d live if he’d had to keep that blindfold on forever.</p>
<p>He grimaced. And that’s what she’d been doing, for months.</p>
<p>Why hadn’t he been able to see that?</p>
<p>She hadn’t been happy. He’d known that. He’d tried to fix that. He’d tried to be happy enough for both of them. It had seemed such an easy task when waking up next to her filled him with a joy he’d never felt before.</p>
<p>But that wasn’t how it worked.</p>
<p>And there were no words or promises he could make that would fix her grief and make up for her loss.</p>
<p>
  <i>Do not go to the Meridian sector.</i>
</p>
<p>She really didn’t want him to go looking for her.</p>
<p>The message hadn’t even been for him, but for Leia. It wasn’t a hidden clue for him to find. It was a dire warning she’d felt she must deliver to his sister.</p>
<p>He ground his fingers into his face.</p>
<p>She loved him. She’d said she loved him. She’d said she didn’t feel worthy of him, but she was. She was!</p>
<p>But it didn’t matter how he felt. It had been her decision.</p>
<p>And there was no one better to remind him of that than Mara.</p>
<p>His lip twitched ruefully despite himself. Probably for the best that his subconscious had stepped in before his flesh-and-blood friend had figured out what he was doing.</p>
<p>Unless...</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you were about to do, Skywalker, but the Force did not want you to do it.”</p>
<p>He grabbed his comlink and punched in Leia’s code.</p>
<p>She wasn’t thrilled to be woken up in the middle of the night, but she knew the dreams of a jedi master were to be taken seriously. As they went over the weird progression of events together, she agreed that there might be another warning about Nam Chorios in there, but noted that she would likely have to go anyway, even if she could put it off a few days to gather some more intel.</p>
<p>Then, “So it was Mara who gave you this warning?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Have you talked to her recently? Is that why she was in the dream?”</p>
<p>“No, I haven’t,” Luke shrugged. It had been months since he’d seen Mara.</p>
<p>“Maybe you should call her,” his sister suggested. She paused and Luke got the sense she was applying her diplomatic training to her words, “Maybe there’s something in the dream for her too.”</p>
<p>“Like maybe she should get her hyperdrive looked at?”</p>
<p>“Maybe.” Leia’s tone of voice suggested that hadn’t been what she’d been thinking.<br/>
She yawned audibly, “I need to get back to sleep now. Anakin’s had a rough couple of nights and I’m playing catch up.”</p>
<p>Luke told her he’d see her in the morning and cut the call.</p>
<p>He stared at the comlink in his hand for a moment, mind churning. Then he clicked over to a frequency he hadn’t used in a while.</p>
<p>He would have to leave a message.</p>
<p>“Hi Mara,</p>
<p>It’s Luke… I was just...talking with Leia and you came up in conversation so I thought I’d see how things are going for you. Hope you’re well.”</p>
<p>He paused again as he realized he had no idea what he wanted to say.</p>
<p>“I, hope your ship, the Jade’s Fire...uh, I had a dream. I don’t know, but maybe make sure the hyperdrive is looked at soon?”</p>
<p>He grimaced to himself. Ridiculous word salad.</p>
<p>“Anyway, you know that you’re always welcome at the academy. If you ever feel like coming to visit, or to train again.</p>
<p>May the Force be with you.”</p>
<p>He clicked off the channel and flopped backwards in his bed, somehow both calmer and more dissatisfied than he had been moments earlier.</p>
<p>Callista was gone. </p>
<p>Even if he and Leia set out for Nam Chorios anyway, he couldn’t go looking for her. He had to let her go. She wanted it that way.</p>
<p>He stared up into the blue-black haze of his ceiling and watched the reflected lights of the passing traffic bounce in and out of his field of vision until he finally fell into a dreamless sleep.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This may not stop Luke and Leia from having their Planet of Twilight experience but hopefully Luke's stalkerish behaviour will be less of a feature.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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